Thursday, 7 May 2015

When to go to bed tonight

For UK readers

I did this analysis for my own benefit, but there may be others
who need to be wide awake on Friday who might find this information useful. But
if you retire early on the basis of this post and find out things are very different when you wake up, I take no responsibility! My macro you
can believe in; with this stuff I’m an amateur.Unless current polls are wildly wrong, there are only two likely results: the continuation of the current coalition (except in the unlikely event that the LibDem party rejects its leadership), or a Labour government with SNP support. There will be plenty of interesting side-issues going on as well (how dominant will the SNP be, how many seats will UKIP win), but the main result will depend on the Labour/Conservative marginals which Labour must win to form a government, and that is what I focus on here.

10pm

One obvious strategy is to switch the TV off when the exit
polls are announced after the polls close. They will of course tell us a lot, but they are
not nearly as infallible as you might at first think - in fact the information
they provide has to be processed in various ways, as these two studies spell out (HT Chris Giles). Those
producing the poll know they could easily be wrong.

11pm-1am

No important marginals are expected to declare before 1pm, but the first results will be an additional indicator of the national swing. (Remember the Conservative's actual vote share is usually greater than in the final opinion polls: the 'shy Tory' effect.) To
give you an idea of how close it will be, both YouGov and Elections etc suggest
that a 3% point Conservative lead (e.g. 35 to 32) will produce a Cameron
victory (but probably depending on the DUP), while Election forecasts suggest a
2% point Conservative lead gives a final Lab+SNP seat total of just over
315, which should be enough for a Miliband minority government with SNP and
minor party support.

However, like the exit polls, these early indications may be
misleading. A great deal depends on the extent of tactical voting, and in
particular about many UKIP supporters are prepared to vote for
another party in a marginal seat. 1am-3am

Many Labour/Conservative marginals are predicted to declare
around 3am, but there are five exceptions. Probably the first is Nuneton, expected at 1am. This should be a Labour gain - if it is not, things
are looking very good for the Conservatives. If Labour win this then the next
critical seat could be Northampton North
at about 2am - a real knife edge seat. If Labour win this easily things are
looking good for them, but a close loss might not be fatal. (Look at what
happens to the UKIP vote: if the Conservatives win with a UKIP vote share of
around 10% or less, that is a good sign for the Conservatives.)

Two other Lab/Con marginals that might declare before 3am are Chester and Warrington South. Chester should be a Labour gain, but Warrington
South is another knife edge seat. Both LibDem and UKIP support is significant
here (15% and 10% respectively) so if either breaks in one direction this could
decide the result. Cleethorpes may
also declare before 3am: a recent Ashcroft poll gave the Conservatives a 2 point lead
here, so a Labour gain would be a great result for them.

If Labour lose four or more of these five, I think you can
almost certainly go to bed at this stage knowing that Cameron will remain Prime
Minister. If Labour wins four or five, Miliband is looking good, but to be sure
you need to stay up a bit longer. Another interesting seat that may come in
around 2am is Rutherglen & Hamilton
West - if Labour with a good local MP lose this to the SNP, they will probably lose nearly all
their Scottish seats.

3am

Around 3am a whole clutch of seats are due to declare:

Amber Valley: probable
Lab gain, but with a potentially large UKIP (>10%) vote

Bedford: another
likely Lab gain, but with significant (around 12%) UKIP and LibDem support

Brent Central: almost
certain Lab gain, but if close a worry for Labour’s potential London gains

Peterborough: If
Labour wins this (as a recent Ashcroft poll suggested) this will be a good
result for them. UKIP could again be crucial.

Stockton S: Another
real marginal, that a recent Ashcroft poll gave to Labour

If Labour gain less than eight of these seats, Cameron is
probably going to be the next PM. If they gain them all, Miliband probably will
be. Anything in between, and you will have to wait another hour before things
become clearer. Or with 8 or 9 key marginals not expected to declare until
around 5pm, you could just decide to call it a night and find out in the
morning!

Thanks a lot for your commentary on the UK election Simon. Even if we disagree on the government which would be best for the country, always good to hear from an informed dissenting voice.

I'm going to try and go to sleep at 10:05 and wake up at 2am(!) - it's true that the likely government might (might) be known before this point, I think it's worth being up for Clegg (4:30am), Farage (6am) and Labour's Big Beasts in Scotland (3-4am) - a few votes either way in these seats could shape UK politics substantially over the next decade or so.

In past elections, constituency polling has been much less accurate than the national polls. So I wouldn't put too much weight on Ashcroft & I assume it's because of his polls that you're classifying e.g. Chester as a better Labour prospect than Warrington, even though Chester has twice the Con percentage majority that Warrington does. But we haven't long to find out now!

I shall ignore the whole thing, go to bed and listen to the news in the morning.

This seems like a good time to thank you for this blog: it's been a real education for me over the last few months. You haven't changed my vote but it's nice to do so without the feeling that I'm voting against economic competence. As Martin Wolf wrote yesterday a vote for economic competence isn't available in this election.

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